"Pharaoh Necho put him in fetters (ויּאסרהוּ) at Riblah in the land of Hamath, when he had become king at Jerusalem." In 2 Chronicles 36:3 we have, instead of this, "the king of Egypt deposed him (יסירהוּ) at Jerusalem." The Masoretes have substituted as Keri ממּלך, "away from being king," or "that he might be no longer king," in the place of בּמלך, and Thenius and Bertheau prefer the former, because the lxx have τοὺ μὴ βασιλεύειν not in our text only, but in the Chronicles also; but they ought not to have appealed to the Chronicles, inasmuch as the lxx have not rendered the Hebrew text there, but have simply repeated the words from the text of the book of Kings. The Keri is nothing more than an emendation explaining the sense, which the lxx have also followed. The two texts are not contradictory, but simply complete each other: for, as Clericus has correctly observed, "Jehoahaz would of course be removed from Jerusalem before he was cast into chains; and there was nothing to prevent his being dethroned at Jerusalem before he was taken to Riblah."

We are not told in what way Necho succeeded in getting Jehoahaz into his power, so as to put him in chains at Riblah. The assumption of J. D. Michaelis and others, that his elder brother Eliakim, being dissatisfied with the choice of Jehoahaz as king, had recourse to Necho at Riblah, in the hope of getting possession of his father's kingdom through his instrumentality, is precluded by the face that Jehoahaz would certainly not have been so foolish as to appear before the enemy of his country at a mere summons from Pharaoh, who was at Riblah, and allow him to depose him, when he was perfectly safe in Jerusalem, where the will of the people had raised him to the throne. If Necho wanted to interfere with the internal affairs of the kingdom of Judah, it would never have done for him to proceed beyond Palestine to Syria after the victory at Megiddo, without having first deposed Jehoahaz, who had been raised to the throne at Jerusalem without any regard to his will. The course of events was therefore probably the following: After the victory at Megiddo, Necho intended to continue his march to the Euphrates; but on hearing that Jehoahaz had ascended the throne, and possibly also in consequence of complaints which Eliakim had made to him on that account, he ordered a division of his army to march against Jerusalem, and while the main army was marching slowly to Riblah, he had Jerusalem taken, king Jehoahaz dethroned, the land laid under tribute, Eliakim appointed king as his vassal, and the deposed Jehoahaz brought to his headquarters at Riblah, then put into chains and transported to Egypt; so that the statement in 2 Chronicles 36:3, "he deposed him at Jerusalem," is to be taken quite literally, even if Necho did not come to Jerusalem in propri person, but simply effected this through the medium of one of his generals.

(Note: Ewald (Gesch. iii. p. 720) also observes, that "Necho himself may have been in Jerusalem at the time for the purpose of installing his vassal:" this, he says, "is indicated by the brief words in 2 Kings 23:33-34, and nothing can be found to say against it in other historical sources;" though he assumes that Jehoahaz had allowed himself to be enticed by Necho to go to Riblah into the Egyptian camp, where he was craftily put into chains, and soon carried off as a prisoner to Egypt. - We should have a confirmation of the taking of Jerusalem by Necho in the account given by Herodotus (ii.:159): μετὰ δὲ τήν μάχην (i.e., after the battle at Megiddo) Κάδυτιν πόλιν τῆς Συρίης ἐοῦσαν μεγάλην εἶλε, if any evidence could be brought to establish the opinion that by Κάδυτις we are to understand Jerusalem. But although what Herodotus says (iii. 5) concerning Κάδυτις does not apply to any other city of Palestine so well as to Jerusalem, the use of the name Κάδυτις for Jerusalem has not yet been sufficiently explained, since it cannot come from קדושה, the holy city, because the ש of this word does not pass into t in any Semitic dialect, and the explanation recently attempted by Bttcher (N. ex. Krit. Aehrenlese, ii. pp. 119ff.) from the Aramaean חדיתא, the renewed city (new-town), is based upon many very questionable conjectures. At the same time so much is certain, that the view which Hitzig has revived (de Cadyti urbe Herod. Gott. 1829, p. 11, and Urgeschichte der Philister, pp. 96ff.), and which is now the prevalent one, viz., that Κάδυτις is Gaza, is exposed to some well-founded objections, even after what Stark (Gaza, pp. 218ff.) has adduced in its favour. The description which Herodotus gives (iii. 5) of the land-road to Egypt: ἀπὸ Φοινίκης μέχρι οὔρων τῶν Καδύτιος πόλιος ἥ ἐστι Σύρων τῶν Παλαιστινῶν καλεομένων· ἀπὸ δὲ Καδύτιος, ἐούσης πόλιος (ὡς ἐμοὶ δοκέει) Σαρδίων ου ̓ πολλῷ ἐλάσσονος, ἀπὸ ταύτης τὰ ἐμπόρια τὰ ἐπὶ θαλάσσης μέχρι Ἰηνύσου πόλιός ἐστι τοῦ Ἀραβίου· does not apply to Gaza, because there were no commercial towns on the sea-coast between the district of Gaza and the town of Yenysus (the present Khan Ynas); but between the district of Jerusalem and the town of Yenysus there were the Philistian cities Ashkelon and Gaza, which Herodotus might call τὰ ἐμπόρια τοὺ Ἀραβίου, whereas the comparison made between the size of Kadytis and that of Sardes points rather to Jerusalem than to Gaza. Still less can the datum in Jeremiah 47:1, "before Pharaoh smote Gaza," be adduced in support of Gaza. If we bear in mind that Jeremiah's prophecy (2 Kings 47) was not uttered before the fourth year of Jehoiakim's reign, and therefore that Pharaoh had not smitten Gaza at that time, supposing that this Pharaoh was really Necho, it cannot have been till after his defeat at Carchemish that Necho took Gaza on his return home. Ewald, Hitzig, and Graf assume that this was the case; but, as M. v. Niebuhr has correctly observed, it has "every military probability" against it, and even the incredibility that "a routed Oriental army in its retreat, which it evidently accomplished in one continuous march, notwithstanding the fact that on its line of march there were the strongest positions, on the Orontes, Lebanon, etc., at which it might have halted, should have taken the city upon its flight." And, lastly, the name Κάδυτις does not answer to the name Gaza, even through the latter was spelt Gazatu in early Egyptian (Brugsch, Geograph. Inschr. ii. p. 32) since the u (y) of the second syllable still remains unexplained.)

Riblah has been preserved in the miserable village of Rible, from ten to twelve hours to the S.S.W. of Hums (Emesa) by the river el Ahsy (Orontes), in a large fruitful plain of the northern portion of the Bekaa, which was very well adapted to serve as the camping ground of Necho's army as well as of that of Nebuchadnezzar (2 Kings 25:6, 2 Kings 25:20-21), not only because it furnished the most abundant supply of food and fodder, but also on account of its situation on the great caravan-road from Palestine by Damascus, Emesa, and Hamath to Thapsacus and Carchemish on the Euphrates (cf. Rob. Bibl. Res. pp. 542-546 and 641).

In the payment imposed upon the land by Necho, one talent of gold (c. 25,000 thalers: 3750) does not seem to bear any correct proportion to 100 talents of silver (c. 250,000 thalers, or 37,500), and consequently the lxx have 100 talents of gold, the Syr. and Arab. 10 talents; and Thenius supposes this to have been the original reading, and explains the reading in the text from the dropping out of a y ( equals 10), though without reflecting that as a rule the number 10 would require the plural כּכּרים.

2 Kings 24:2 Parallel Commentaries

the Lord.

2 Kings 6:23 And he prepared great provision for them: and when they had eaten and drunk, he sent them away, and they went to their master...

2 Kings 13:20,21 And Elisha died, and they buried him. And the bands of the Moabites invaded the land at the coming in of the year...

Deuteronomy 28:49,50 The LORD shall bring a nation against you from far, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flies...

2 Chronicles 33:11 Why the LORD brought on them the captains of the host of the king of Assyria, which took Manasseh among the thorns...

Job 1:17 While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, The Chaldeans made out three bands, and fell on the camels...

Isaiah 7:17 The LORD shall bring on you, and on your people, and on your father's house, days that have not come...

Isaiah 13:5 They come from a far country, from the end of heaven, even the LORD, and the weapons of his indignation, to destroy the whole land.

Jeremiah 35:11 But it came to pass, when Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon came up into the land, that we said, Come...

Ezekiel 19:8 Then the nations set against him on every side from the provinces, and spread their net over him: he was taken in their pit.

according.

2 Kings 20:17 Behold, the days come, that all that is in your house, and that which your fathers have laid up in store to this day...

2 Kings 21:12-14 Therefore thus said the LORD God of Israel, Behold, I am bringing such evil on Jerusalem and Judah, that whoever hears of it...

2 Kings 23:27 And the LORD said, I will remove Judah also out of my sight, as I have removed Israel...

Isaiah 6:11,12 Then said I, Lord, how long? And he answered, Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man...

Jeremiah 25:9 Behold, I will send and take all the families of the north, said the LORD, and Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon, my servant...

Jeremiah 26:6,20 Then will I make this house like Shiloh, and will make this city a curse to all the nations of the earth...

Jeremiah 32:28 Therefore thus said the LORD; Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the Chaldeans...

Micah 3:12 Therefore shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps...

his. Heb. the hand of his.